When James Turken, manager partner at Dickstein, Shapiro’s California offices and plaintiffs’ lawyer in this case, was asked by the Jewish Press what he thought about the claims by Adaya’s lawyers, he responded with a soft chuckle and raised a third problem with the claim: “I don’t even think the juror they are claiming hid being Jewish is actually Jewish,” he said, ” but I know they never asked about that” during the jury selection process.
Turken was reluctant to comment on anything other than the legal matters of the case, but quipped about the Zionist Gala to be held at the Shangri-La, “since Adaya was found liable for insisting that “all the ‘blankin’ Jews get out of her pool, I’m going to assume this isn’t going to be a pool party.”
For her part, Geller is saying that it is the first time that she can think of in which a Muslim has publicly acknowledged that “Islamic anti-Semitism is wrong, and offered to make amends for it.” She went on to acknowledge that Adaya might be engaging in a form of deception while not actually ruing her acts of discrimination, she said, “Taqiyya? Maybe, but how sincere they are is not the point: the point is that they’re publicly admitting that Islamic Jew-hatred exists and is wrong. We’re going to make the most of it.”
Geller promises she and Spencer will partake in a proudly Zionist event in the Shangri-La Hotel, “in which we will talk forthrightly about the roots of Islamic antisemitism in the Quran and other Islamic texts.”
An ironic sidenote is that when Geller was scheduled to speak at an event for the ZOA at the building owned by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles last June, the Federation cancelled her, reportedly because of fear that local Muslim groups might protest outside the building. At the time, Geller responded that the Jewish Federation “cravenly submitted to Islamic supremacists who wanted to suppress free speech.”
A public statement prepared by Ellen Adelman, the Shangri-La Hotel’s development officer, was issued about the upcoming Purim Gala. It states that the hotel “is committed to enhancing understanding and cooperation between people of all backgrounds and cultures, and to embrace differences. Our hope is that we can come together and celebrate the theme of their party – Purim – a holiday designed to bring people together.”
When Lozano, the Shangri-La’s public relations manager, was asked by the Jewish Press whether Adaya would be attending the Zionist Purim event at her hotel, Lozano – who is Jewish – said he didn’t know. When asked whether he thought Purim is really a holiday “designed to bring people together,” he snorted, acknowledging it was a strange way to describe Purim.
Perhaps Adaya hasn’t been told that at the end of the Purim story, Haman is hanged.